


Hannibal The Babysitter

by neonntiger



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hannibal fluff, Other, it's hannibal and a baby that's all you need to know, the fluffiest Hannibal fluff ever of all time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 00:51:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2832209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonntiger/pseuds/neonntiger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal Lecter has met his match...who happens to be Alana Bloom's six month old daughter, Grace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hannibal The Babysitter

**Author's Note:**

> This hasn't been edited at all so apologies in advance for typos and/or nonsensical things. 
> 
> This is just shameless, plotless fluff. I've had such a yen for Hannibal interacting with babies and there's a very sad shortage of those kinds of fics so I decided to take matters into my own hands and whip something up. Because that's what people do at 3 am instead of sleeping, right? Right. 
> 
> Comments and criticisms are always welcomed! Thank you for reading :)

“Dr. Bloom.”  
“Hannibal!” Alana spins on the balls of her feet to face the door of her office. She sweeps her hair over her shoulder to see Hannibal clearly. “You’re here uncharacteristically late tonight.”  
“I neglected to give you this today,” he holds up a long ivory envelope.   
“What’s that?” She beckons him into the room with a tilt of her head.   
“Plans for the evening from Maxwell.”  
“Maxwell planned an evening? Maxwell hasn’t planned anything since our honeymoon.”  
“I may have offered gentle guidance.”  
“Does that mean he sat in your office while you pulled god knows which strings and made reservations us mere mortals never knew were possible?” Alana teases gently, the click of her bag’s latch punctuating her question.   
“Perhaps.”

Alana laughs. She pulls her jacket on and hangs her bag off her shoulder. Hannibal extends the envelope to her with both hands. She accepts it and peers immediately inside to create a mental itinerary from the contents she sees; dinner at Charleston Restaurant, a performance by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and a night at the Four Seasons.

“Where is Maxwell?”  
“In the parking lot waiting for you.”  
“But I have the car today.”  
“He arranged for a Rolls Royce.”  
“Thank you, Hannibal,” Alana grins.  
He bows modestly.  
“Did he have time to find a sitter for Grace amidst all this planning today?”  
“He did, he found me.”  
“You’re watching her for the night?”  
“Yes, Alana, I insisted on it. She’s my goddaughter and I haven’t had the pleasure of spending more than a few hours a week with her.”  
“She’s six months old. She drools everywhere, she makes a mess,” Alana can barely get the words out from having to suppress her laughter from the mental images flickering by behind her eyes. “Are you sure?”  
“Absolutely.”  
“Okay, Dr. Lecter,” she starts out the door, Hannibal two paces behind her. “If you insist.”

* * *

Baby Grace sits at Hannibal’s feet with her face tipped skyward to look at him. The pale blue irises she was born with had hardened into a bright, steely blue that mirror her mother’s eyes. Hannibal looks at Grace and sees Alana’s features and feels the force of Alana’s personality. Grace is vocal and temperamental, intuitive and sensitive. She is wholly and completely her mother’s daughter. Right now, she’s just a pearl of milky skin amidst the elaborate patterns of his silk Isfahan rug. She pulls on her toes and teeters from side to side in anticipation for Hannibal to do something. Instead, he stands over her like a monolith of wool and twill and rolls the sleeves of his shirt up past his elbows. Grace stops teetering. She releases her toes, her feet hitting the carpet with two soft thuds. She lifts her hands up to him. 

Hannibal shrinks himself when he crouches before her. She starts at the sudden movement and hiccups in a skipped breath. She giggles when she realizes her fright was in vain. The sweet silvery bell of her amusement sounds sweeter still muffled against the side of his cheek when he picks her up in one fluid scoop. He holds her high on his chest so that they’re at eye level with each other. Grace leans back and looks at Hannibal before pressing her palm to the glossy patch of skin the contact of her mouth left on his skin. 

“It’s time for your bath, tiny angel,” he coos, leaning his face into her hand.

Grace tests the timbre of different parts of Hannibal’s cheek with soft, curious slaps as he carries her into the bathroom. She gets the meatiest slap from below the apple of his cheek. When Hannibal puffs his cheeks out Grace starts again, giggling and withdrawing her hands with apprehensive delight. She examines the softness of his neck while he sits on the edge of the clawfoot bathtub in his master bathroom watching it fill with tepid water. He turns the taps off when he estimates three inches of water. 

Hannibal’s first mistake of the night is assuming that baby Grace would be as compliant during bath time as she was the previous time he bathed her shortly after she was born. Instead of sitting in the water when Hannibal puts her down, she locks her knees and bounces up and down with breathless excitement. Where she used to be quiet and paralyzed with wonderment at the sensation of being weightless in water, Grace now squeaks and kicks and refuses to succumb to a position even remotely close to sitting. With Hannibal’s hands bracing her securely under her arms, she feels safe enough to test the strength of her legs and pushes off the bottom of the tub with the tips of her toes. Each hop and swing of her legs sends a fresh splash of water up Hannibal’s arms and over the edge of the tub onto the floor. Hannibal’s socks are saturated within a few minutes. When he kneels to try and hold Grace another way to coax her to sit, his wool trouser soaks water up from his knees to his hems. He ignores the cold sensation against his shins and catches both of Grace’s ankles between his fingers.

“Sitting time,” he says gently as he tries to manipulate her slippery body to sit down. “We need to get you clean.”

Grace is blind and deaf to Hannibal from her glee over her splashing. Fearing she may slip out of his hands, Hannibal angles himself and tries to use his forearm as a bar to lean her over so he can at least begin lathering her, sitting or not. Instead of leaning into his arm, Grace leans over and makes an attempt to grab the water with her hands, the prospect of a new game sending her into delirious mirth. Hannibal drops the small bar of French-milled soap into the water to steady little Grace before she falls face-first. 

“Grace, darling,” Hannibal tries to cajole her to be still.   
“Ahhhhhh!” She squeaks, still drying to dive into the water, which is beginning to bubble the more she kicks now that the soap is in it. “Eeeeee!”   
“Grace, darling,” Hannibal repeats. “Look at Uncle Hannibal, hm?”  
“Mmmmmmmmm!” She hums, eyeing the pink bar of soap in the water. She wants that soap. She lunges for it. “Ahhhh!”  
“Grace, Grace,” Hannibal braces himself against the opposite end of the tub and holds Grace securely to his chest with his other arm, her wet body soaking through his shirt. “We need to be still for bath time, right?”

Against better judgement, Hannibal swings his leg over the edge of the tub in a fresh effort to wrangle the energetic child into submission. He tries to sit her against his thigh but she’s still determined to capture the elusive bar of soap that sways from one side of the tub to the other every time she kicks her feet. Before Hannibal can asses the situation logically, he’s kneeling in the tub, soaked to the belt with water climbing quickly through the threads of his twill shirt, with Grace finally sitting between his knees balancing two clouds of white suds in each palm while he lathers and rinses her from forehead to toe. Hannibal pulls the stopper in the tub and holds Grace under the running water to rinse her off like a piece of silverware after an arduous buffing. She’s giddy under the running water, completely mystified at how the elaborate faucet could produce such a beautiful stream of warm liquid.

Hannibal avoids the mirror when he steps out of the tub, his wool pants weighing him down like blocks of concrete on each leg. He steps carefully across the bathroom and pulls a white towel from a shelf to swaddle little Grace in, who seems to be only more energized from the soapy choreography she just performed. He dries her gently and then wraps her in the towel like a samosa, tucking the ends of the fabric into folds that successfully trapped her in the soft wrap. 

“For just a moment, my sweet,” Hannibal assures her, setting her down on the floor on another, clean towel. 

He keeps his eye on her while he peels his wet clothes off, discarding them into the hamper to be taken care of immediately. Grace is furious at the entrapment. She tries to move her hands and legs, but her soft cocoon has her completely immobile. She wails out helplessly as Hannibal pulls a robe on. He bends over and tugs one corner of the towel and the prison comes undone. Grace struggles on her back but rights herself quickly and crawls as fast as she can out of the bathroom. Hannibal lets her get as far as the door before picking her up by her ankle and dangling her upside-down. Grace is beside herself with shock and surprise at the world upside-down, at Hannibal upside-down, at Hannibal’s smile upside-down. She blinks a hundred times, amazed every time she opens her eyes again to see her new and exciting surroundings. 

Hannibal puts her down on his bed on a dry towel. She lies on her back, tilting and angling her head to try and return to her upside-down parallel universe. Hannibal embraces the distraction and indulges her by tilting and angling his own head while he massages Crème de la Mer into every inch of her dewy skin. His ministrations leave her at war against her tiredness. She lets her eyes close and rests for only a few seconds before forcing them open and looking around. By the time Hannibal is massaging her chest and her arms, she’s sound asleep, sprawled out and snoring as peacefully as a cherub angel. Hannibal finishes, puts her in a diaper and a one-piece pyjama, and tucks her into his bed between two long pillows while he changes out of his robe and into his own sleepwear. 

The guest room in Hannibal’s home had a crib for Grace, but he knew that crib would go unused tonight. Alana had recently begun co-sleeping with her daughter and emphasized to Hannibal the importance of him co-sleeping with her so not to disrupt the fine-tuned night routine Alana had established. Hannibal was familiar with co-sleeping, with its advantages and detriments, but he was in no position to counter Alana’s maternal intuitions with her child. If she wanted him to co-sleep, he would co-sleep. 

He gets into bed slowly beside Grace and lies on his back beside her. Having slept earlier that day for his customary two hours while a roast cooked for dinner, he felt refreshed, even after such a laborious exertion in the tub with Grace. He closes his eyes and turns his mind sideways, spinning it and allowing chance to dictate where he will visit.

He lands in Reggia di Venaria Reale, specifically in La Galleria Grande. It’s early dawn and sunlight is beginning to trickle into the ivory corridor between the columns to his left. The checkered floor is polished to a high gleam. In soft-soled loafers and a white linen suit, he is impervious to the warmth of dawn clinging to him, surrounding him, hanging heavy in the clear air like a satin curtain. He pads down the long hallway with his hands folded behind him and his nose lifted to scent the air. He smells the saltwater for La Torrente Ceronda. The breeze carries it into the galleria; the ocean feels closer than it is. He inhales again. Freshly trimmed hedges and damp earth. A third breath smells strongly of Crème de la Mer, an olfactory signal that throws Hannibal off. His nose itches and he rubs it, both in his mind and in bed. 

His fingers collide with Grace’s hand. She’s lying across his shoulder trying to get her finger into Hannibal’s nostril in the dark. 

“Grace,” he whispers, holding her hand between his thumb and index. He can see on his watch two hours and thirty two minutes have elapsed. “Go back to sleep.”

Grace closes her eyes and moves her hand from Hannibal’s fingers. He watches her finger make its way back towards his nose and deflects the tiny appendage. Grace’s eyes fly open. He kisses her hand and repositions her in bed so that she was lying properly beside him. He moves onto his side, head propped up on his hand, elbow on his pillow, and draws soft circles on Grace’s chest, then her stomach, then down each leg. She fights sleep but succumbs to it after only a few minutes.

Hannibal lays back down, closes his eyes, and returns to Italy. 

The next time he wakes up, Grace has her hand up to his chin this time, tapping away against the underside of his jaw contentedly. Hannibal lulls her back to sleep.

The third time she wakes up, Hannibal brings her to the kitchen for a bottle. He burps her and changes her diaper and she falls promptly back to sleep. For ten minutes. Hannibal hasn’t even closed his eyes when he feels Grace shifting beside him. She grabs hold of his shirt and uses it to hoist herself up. She drops onto his chest with the full weight of her tiny body, something that causes Hannibal to let out a puff of air reflexively. Grace giggles.

“Grace, darling,” Hannibal says quietly. He eyes his watch; 10:13 pm. “It’s time for sleeping now.” 

Grace rests her cheek on his chest, delighted to hear the low lub-dub of Hannibal’s heart in his chest. Hannibal rubs her back and watches as her lids droop closed over her bright blue irises. 

This time she stays asleep an hour, two hours, three hours. When she opens her eyes again, Hannibal’s are closed. She gets on her hands and knees and drops herself onto his face. She uses her tiny, clumsy fingers to try and pry open Hannibal’s eyelids. He blinks, shaking his head, and startles Grace enough for her soother to fall out of her mouth and onto his forehead. A line of spit falls across the bridge of his nose.

“Grace,” he lifts her off his face and puts her down beside him in her little nest of blankets and pillows. He gives her back her soother and wipes his face with a handkerchief. “We need to stay asleep tonight, okay?”

Grace lays still. She watches Hannibal for a long time. He watches her smile from behind the round edges of her soother, sometimes laughing tiredly at nothing in particular. He lets her hold onto his thumb, his handkerchief, the cuff of his pyjama top. She’s curiously awake for 2 am. 

Eventually she falls asleep and managed another solid three hours. She’s energized enough to climb Mount Lecter again. She sits triumphantly on his chest bouncing her heels off his ribcage. Hannibal forfeits agency over his own body for the night. Grace is unrelenting; harmless but determined. She slumps over sideways after an hour of rib drumming with her feet and sleeps on top of him with her head nestled below his chin until the first golden flickers of sunlight percolate in through Hannibal’s dense curtains. 

* * *

Grace is waist deep in paper snowflakes in Hannibal’s study. She sits in front of his desk, dressed and fed for the morning, rolling around in the pile gleefully, squeaking when Hannibal drops a new flake down on her. The surface of his desk, usually so pristine and uncluttered, is littered with tiny triangles and squares of cut-out paper. Hannibal overlooks the temporary mess to entertain Grace while they wait for Alana, who called just a moment ago to let them know she was on her way. 

When Hannibal runs out of paper to cut, he joins Grace on the floor. She pulls at his clothes forcefully and grunts and beeps for him to lie down with her and roll around. When she succeeds in getting Hannibal on his back, she grabs fistful after fistful of the snowflakes, ripping some and crumpling others, and throws them on top of Hannibal, on his chest and face, across his stomach and down his legs. She’s beside herself with delight, the same inhabited joy she felt in the bath tub trying to get her hands on the soap in the water. Hannibal can do nothing but lie back under Grace’s shower of paper confections. 

Neither hear Alana enter the house and walk up the stairs. Neither hear her in the hallway or standing at the threshold of his office. She watches them on the floor and pulls her phone out to take a video; little Grace and Uncle Hannibal play with paper snowflakes, she thinks to herself, a perfect addition to the growing folder of videos and pictures on her mobile. 

Grace notices Alana first and crawls across the floor like a bullet to her. Hannibal takes several seconds to right himself, a mountain of snowflakes falling off his chest and into his lap. 

“Good morning, Alana,” he almost laughs, combing a hand through his hair.   
“Good morning, Frosty,” Alana smiles at Hannibal before she scoops Grace up and greets her with a dozen kisses and a tight squeeze. Her good morning to Grace is muffled against her daughter’s plump cheek. “You survived your first night with a baby, I see.”  
“Both of us came out unscathed,” he nods, standing and going over to Alana. “You seem rested.”  
“Maxwell and I skipped out on the opera during the first intermission and went to the hotel. We both slept for ten solid hours. Ten uninterrupted hours of sleep, Hannibal.”  
He bows his head. “Were the accommodations to your liking?”  
“Incredible, we were both so pleased with everything. And we can’t thank you enough for watching Grace. Was she okay, did she sleep well?”  
Grace looks at Hannibal and Hannibal returns her mischievous little gaze with a warm smile and a poke against her nose. “She was an angel.”


End file.
